After months of clinging to a walker toy for dear life, Mr Squish is now properly walking on his own!
I love the arms in the air. It’s like the police have just forced him to drop his weapons and come slowly out of a building. It’s every mother’s dream.
When I tell mothers of older children that my bub is walking, their reactions have been eerily similar. There’s always the enthusiastic congratulations followed by a merry prediction along the lines of “Your life is OVER”.
And I’m starting to understand what they mean. My son has always been energetic and adventurous but he’s now almost kamikaze in his approach to navigating furniture. If there is a dangerous spot in our house Mr Squish will try to climb it, stand for a few tantalizing seconds, then fall off it.
He rarely hurts himself as we have a rug and padding in the biggest ‘gymnastic’ areas. Yet my heart is having trouble staying in my chest.
The other day, I returned to our lounge room – having been gone for a mere 20 seconds – only to discover Mr Squish standing precariously ON OUR WINDOW SILL. It’s a metre above our couch.
As I ran towards him, I simply cried out “FUCK!”.
What my response lacked in wit or cleverness, it certainly made up for in volume. [Note to self: apologise to elderly Croatian neighbours].
The window was closed so Mr Squish was amusing himself by banging his hand against the glass. As I grabbed him, he looked up at me as if to say “Mum! Check out this awesome standing platform I’ve discovered! I shall visit here every chance I get!”
And he has.
I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I discover him standing somewhere even more ridiculous.
On our fridge, perhaps.
Or on our elderly neighbour’s roof.
[Note to self: Save afore-mentioned apology for when I have to retrieve son off their roof. Two birds with one stone. Mothers really are great at time management, hey.]
Ah it all sound so eerily familiar! I found Devilboy on our windowsill too at that age too – laying his full weight against 2mm thin glass that is barely held in by old paint and crumbling putty. BUt do not fear, you too will become a master in the zen art of furniture rearrangement! :-)
By “furniture rearrangement”, do you mean sticking every piece you own safely in the backyard until your child is 5-years-old?
Wait til you potty train. If he is anything like my first born, he will delight in waggling his Mr out the window in the breeze.
Did i mention we lived in a first floor flat at the time?
Yikes! Your heart must have been in your throat.
In fact, that gives me an idea. To any doctors out there, if you need to test someone’s heart, forget things like echocardiograms. Just get the patient to mind a toddler for a day. Especially, it seems, a boy toddler. I can’t think of a better test for your ticker.
My son (who is almost nine years old and suffers from Aspergers) has always had a somewhat unhealthy fascination with his ‘Mr’, as you call it. If you find it interesting that your two year old waggles his ‘Mr’ out of the window, you should meet my son. Last year, at the grand old age of seven, I caught him standing outside his sister’s window in full view of the neighbours, waggling his willy at my very curious Siamese cat, who was parked on the inside o the window beneath the curtain. Of course, due to his disability he wasn’t aware that his willy-waggling was at all innapropriate. I was mortified, and my cat…..well, she’s still seeing the Pet Psychologist and hasn’t been the same since.
Sometimes, only sometimes I want to chop it off!
It’s always the cats who suffer in these stories.
;)